Maine

The Interactive Corporate Registry Service — ICRS — covers corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships and cooperatives. Search by keyword from the name, or by charter number.

Free search gives you the entity, its status, its registered agent and the filing history. Annual reports and clerk/officer detail generally cost a small fee per document, which is worth paying: the annual report is where the people behind the entity are named.

A UCC-1 names the debtor, the secured party and the collateral — which routinely names the bank or finance company behind a piece of equipment.

Maine is a farming, fishing and logging state. Expect vessels, timber harvesters, tractors and refrigeration equipment, and expect the lender to be a local savings bank or a credit union rather than a national name.

Covers most trades and professions in one place, with licence status, licence history and disciplinary action.

Maine licenses guides, trappers and marine trades that most states do not, which occasionally puts a subject on a register you would never think to check.

Maine has no statewide land records portal. Each county registry runs its own system, and the quality ranges from good to genuinely poor.

Search grantor and grantee by name and you pick up the mortgages, discharges, liens and attachments tied to a person rather than one parcel.

Assessed values and parcel maps come from the town assessor. In Maine’s unorganised territories there is no town — the county or the state handles assessment, and the records live somewhere else entirely.

re:SearchMaine replaced the older Odyssey portal. Register a free account, then search by party name or case number and read the Registry of Actions — the docket entry list.

Coverage is limited to courts where electronic filing has been rolled out. If a case does not appear, that does not mean it does not exist.

One of the more useful public criminal searches in the country. Pay by card online, or by check or money order through the post.

What comes back:

• Adult convictions on file with the Bureau
• Juvenile felony adjudications
• Pending cases less than one year old

Organisations running frequent checks can subscribe through InforME for a per-search discount.

DRVS is at 220 Capitol Street in Augusta and takes walk-ins from 9am to 4pm, same-day service. Mail and online requests are also accepted.

• Certified copy — $15
• Each additional copy of the same record — $6
• Verification of facts on a record — $25

Cashier’s checks, money orders and the major cards are all accepted.

The town clerk where the event happened holds the same record and is often quicker than the state.

Uncashed cheques, dormant accounts, insurance proceeds, utility deposits. Free name search.

The address attached to a reported item is the address the holder had on file when they reported it — which is a free, dated address on somebody who has otherwise gone quiet.

Maine’s central voter registration file is not public in the way some states’ files are. Access is restricted by statute, largely to political committees and candidates, and commercial use is prohibited.

Maine has no annual municipal census equivalent to the Massachusetts street list. If you are working a Maine subject and hoping for that, there is not one.